TIMELESS - The Human Experience through a Quantum Lens
Welcome to TIMELESS with Play Lab's, Isabel Soden, and Quantum Neuroscience Explorer, Clive Hyland.
Series 1 of TIMELESS is 9 episodes of illuminating, energising, sometimes challenging stuff that resonates with a joyful optimism.
The discussions launch with a relatable overview of physics and neuroscience, laying a necessary foundation for the conversations that follow. We shoot upward into the implications for the universe to then drill down into the implications for humans and organisations. Then full throttle we venture into how to move forward in terms of quantum thinking.
TIMELESS - The Human Experience through a Quantum Lens
TIMELESS Ep 2 - Energy
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Why is energy the cornerstone of quantum thinking? Episode 2 of TIMELESS goes deeper into the physics of fields, frequencies and the universe.
Here we will delve more deeply into quantum energy, particularly exploring why it created such a fundamental shift in our understanding of the universe. We will examine the dilemma faced by the physics community in the 20th century as represented by Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.
We will present the proposition that it’s time for quantum physics to come out of
the lab and to inform an important debate about the true nature of human potential.
Timeless. T he human experience through a Quantum Lens. Hello everyone and welcome back to Timeless Podcast with me, Isabel Soden.
SpeakerI'm Clive Hyland.
Speaker 1Here we are, episode two. Uh much anticipated, by me at least. We are here talking about energy. Clive. Quantum energy.
SpeakerYeah, nice, nice, straightforward subject.
Speaker 1Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
SpeakerSo you want me to explain it? I'd love you to. Oh god. All right. Yeah, okay. So let's let's just talk about energy for the moment. So this is for if it's the first time people have come across this. It takes a little while to get your head around it. But basically, everything we perceive and experience is energy. We are energetic beings. If you break us down to the atomic and subatomic level level, all matter is left behind, and we down at the quantum energy level, which means the quantum means the smallest unit, smallest known unit of energy. So um, and the fundamental challenge of our current understanding of human nature is you know, why is it that the laws of physics that apply at the level of matter do not apply at the level of energy? So back to the iceberg. You know, we have a pretty good grasp of the rules that apply above the surface, the bits of the iceberg that we can see, but we don't really know how it works like that, because all the driving forces below the surface are still unknown to us, and that's the quantum world. Okay, so first step, get your head around the fact that everything is energy. And if you broadly put it into human context, it's saying, How can we really understand human nature, its potential and its challenges, if we don't understand ourselves at a foundational level? So we um the the world of the physics community changed fundamentally at the beginning of the 20th century. Um when these experiments which showed the different behavior of energy emerged for the first time. Um basically the bottom line was that energy behaves differently when it is observed as opposed to when it is not observed. And that sounds really weird, right? Yeah. So if you're looking at it, um it behaves in a particular way. If you're not looking at it, it behaves in a different way that we don't understand.
Speaker 1But what do you mean by behave?
SpeakerSo it materializes when through observation. So one way of explaining it would be to say when we are looking at the universe, when we're experiencing it, you know, we have perceptual systems ourselves which uh enable us to see the universe in a particular way, but that doesn't necessarily mean to say that's the way it is. In fact, if you look at energy that's not observed, it doesn't have any form, it doesn't have any matter. Okay, so we may be perceiving the universe in a way that perhaps an alien force would see it in a totally different way and experience it in a different way. It doesn't have an independent existence of us.
Speaker 1So does that mean it organizes our set itself for our benefit?
SpeakerIt means not really, it's an intersection of the energy of consciousness, yeah, and we'll come back to that in more detail at a future session. But you in our at the moment, let's just think of it as perception, okay? So our perception energy, what we're using to interrogate, you know, our environment, intersects with that universe energy, quantum energy, and from that images are created, or we create images in our own mind of what the universe is like. But that is us constructing that universe in that particular way.
Speaker 1Yes, the constructing it, but also affecting it.
SpeakerWell, let's start with the construction of it. So just further example of that would be like there's no sound in the universe, there is no colour in the universe, that's all created in our brains, in our minds. And we'll come back to a mind and brain debate a bit further down the line, but let's let's walk before we can uh run. Okay. So because all our experiences are created in our mind, they don't actually happen out there. We've allowed ourselves to think there's an independent universe that we observe. Uh yeah, we certainly observe it, but we co-create it as well through the act of our observation. Now that's an incredibly esoteric point. I get that, and that's why there's a standard saying in quantum physics, which is if you say you understand it, it proves you don't, because it is beyond comprehension in some way, and that's why we'll come back on to the dilemma that the physics community was faced with. We'll come back to that shortly. How do you deal with this stuff that tears up all the rules of our understanding of matter and the universe that we perceive? Yeah. Got any answers? Okay.
Speaker 1No, but can I it reminds me of I I can't remember, I must have been 1819, and reading Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception. Right. And the idea that we have all of these veils on uh our experience of of the universe or our our own consciousness in order to just stay focused on the acts of survival and procreation. And is that valid here?
SpeakerYeah, it's it's part of it, but it's even more fundamental than that. You know, the the key experiment, and you can see this experiment um online if anyone wants to check it off. The double slit experiment, okay? So I won't try and explain all the detail of that because it would take too long. But in essence, what it what it demonstrates is our energy behaves like a particle when it's observed, which means you can see it, experience it, but when it isn't observed, it does not act in that way. And frankly, we don't really know what happens when it's not being observed. And you can literally do that by the turning on and off of the observation equipment. You have to use special specialist equipment because obviously this is beyond the spectrum that we can see as human beings, right? But it's quite clear cut, and there's just this apparent weirdness whereby energy does not behave itself when it's not being observed. No, and that's pretty fundamental because you know the physics community at the time, this was 1928, uh, was very much sort of thinking, well, all we've got to do now is tick off a few boxes and we sorted everything. We've cracked the universe and we know how it's working. Well, this came along and destroyed all those rules, and that's when you get into the complex conversations between the various influences, the physicists of the time and people like Einstein and Bohr. But let me just put it at a sort of another level, first of all. So, so number one, when we go to a level of depth of the human nature to the smallest units, we don't understand the rules. Okay, equally that can apply when we talk at the cosmos level. So when we're talking about big and the universe, physics again struggles to really explain how the universe works. So we know it consists entirely of energetic forces, but our understanding of those energetic forces is limited. And we use a concept that we call dark energy and dark matter to explain that.
Speaker 1Yeah.
SpeakerRight? So fundamentally, with forces like gravity, and there are other forces, but you know, that's one of the key ones in this, they help to hold all the planets that we we perceive and the solar systems, etc., etc., in place.
Speaker 2Yeah.
SpeakerBut the calculations used by physics would mean that um they can't work because effectively the universe would be expanding at a rate much faster than it is and like flying off to all corners that we don't understand. It wouldn't be in the state of control balance that it is now. Yeah. Okay. So the the insights don't line up with the calculations, the mass that we use in terms of quantum mechanics to explain the behavior of the universe. And the way that that gap is explained, the uncertainty around the universe, is we talk about dark matter and dark energy.
Speaker 1Yeah.
SpeakerSo it's a way of saying, and we don't understand that bit.
Speaker 1Okay.
SpeakerAnd that bit happens to be 95%.
Speaker 1Wow.
SpeakerAnd that isn't a joke. You know, so this one is like, yeah, that's real. So what we're basically saying is we we understand 5% of the universe, the rest of it we acknowledge, we know it's there, but we're not sure what it is. Yeah? Yeah. So anyone to me, therefore, that is in the realm of oh, if it isn't science, you know, it doesn't count. It's crazy when science has so many limitations.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SpeakerYeah, but you know, I'm not knocking science because I love it. I love, you know, that in its right place, the rigor and discipline that's required to understand predictability. But the universe ultimately is not predictable.
Speaker 1And I don't feel like science is confident about declaring its old own limitations, it has a sense of like, you know, oh, this is these are the answers. It it's a bit drunk on its own.
SpeakerWell, yeah, I guess like all of us really, we can we get sort of caught up in our own conditioned thought patterns, and so would scientists, but you can understand their dilemma, all right? So let's take you back then to that time again. So even though I talked about the the double slit experiment, which was first demonstrated in 1928 with a guy called Heisenberg involved, um the debate had started before then, and effectively unknowingly, Einstein opened up the whole debate around quantum physics when he brought in you know these laws of gravity and special relativity. Okay, so it sort of opened the door, but actually it created him a lot of angst thereafter because he was opening up questions that he couldn't explain himself. Okay, but he was a big thinker, he was very much like he was a philosopher as well, not just a scientist.
Speaker 1Very creative human.
SpeakerAbsolutely fantastic. Some of the quotes, you know, that he comes up there, but you know, what a guy. Um so yeah, one of my role models.
Speaker 1I've often thought of at a certain angle.
SpeakerYeah, I've got I go with my own hairstyle, but you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So but certainly he knew a lot, he he knew some amazing stuff. So when he opened up the door to this stuff, he felt that that debate should be continued. But what he couldn't really do is back it up with the science of the time that sort of demonstrated how you could continue, continue it in a scientifically rigorous way.
Speaker 2I see.
SpeakerIt much more went into the world of philosophy and metaphysics, okay? A lot of intuition, you know, a lot of thought experiment.
Speaker 2Yeah.
SpeakerWhereas you had another guy, and look, he's not a baddie, this other guy, it's just two different views. Niels Bohr, who's a Danish guy, and basically his view was ultra pragmatic. It was like we've discovered enough about the way that these energetic forces work, and we can use that in the external world. Okay, so Bohr's view is much like we can't get caught up in all the weird stuff because that'll take us out to science. So let's focus on what we do feel confident about and get calculating. You know, keep it in the lab, get calculating, and see what we can do with this new understanding of the of the energetic realm.
Speaker 1So it's sort of in the meantime, let's nail what we can nail, and we what 100 years on are still living in that realm and have let go slightly of Einstein's.
SpeakerYeah, more than slightly, but uh I uh you know, so it's but again I'm not knocking um Bohr because you know there's fantastic opportunity in front of them, and therefore the physics community and Bohr won the debate, that's the point, right? In the in the 20th century. But you can see what happened, it got caught up in the like the next thing that came along was the atomic bomb bomb. So, you know, there was all this rush to war on all that stuff, and harnessing the power, you know, nuclear power, atomic power, and it's the the whole so that was a very pragmatic requirement, right? Yeah, you know, when the Western world was fearful of um Hitler being able to create his bomb before anyone else, that's where the preoccupation came. Yeah, you know, pragmatic, yeah. How do we harness this power and this energy in such a way that we can use it rather than worrying about the meaning of life?
Speaker 2Okay, right.
SpeakerNow, if you then cast that forward and sort of say, right, okay, so what's changed now? Well, what's changed now is the science of you know energy has has continued to um to emerge. It's become more experimented, it's become more thorough on the one hand, and you have the driving forces of global threat through environmental change and on the horizon, partly already with us, things like AI, which is causing us to question where the hell are we going. All right, you didn't have those same pressures at the beginning of the 20th century. So now it's like we're at a situation where whilst the discussion around energy and its true nature is nowhere near resolved, we're only scratching the surface of it, we are at a time, I believe, where we shouldn't leave the conversations in the physics lab. Because the connotations for life and human nature and our role in the in the universe are huge, very, very ex existentially significant, I think.
Speaker 1Yeah.
SpeakerMakes sense?
Speaker 1It does, yeah.
SpeakerSo it's back on the table.
Speaker 1Back on the table. There's something um uh it's ringing around my head as you spoke about that, you know, the sort of human doing and the human being, and and that point of departure was we went, oh, the human doing to loop back into the being.
SpeakerYeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Why?
SpeakerWhy, because if we are back in the wrong horse, in other words, if we've got a set of assumptions um that are have got us to the place that is currently a mess, and I think most people would buy that, right? That you know, globally we're in a mess, and there are so many issues around anxiety or a personal level and burnout organizationally and things like that, that you know, if we cracked it all, surely this isn't the way it should be. So if we're in a mess, there's a reason for it. Okay, so if we just stick to our current patterns of thought, then isn't that gonna just get us keep going back to the same place? We're stuck in the cal de sac and we just keep going round and round and round, and we've got the same issues. And despite you know, some attempts to change this, you still see the massive emphasis, for instance, in organizations on upping productivity, but doing it via the old way, you know, much more about efficiency rather than in really exploring what the human mind and brain are capable of. Yeah, you know, so it's like we can't carry on thinking like this, and one of the sources of new information to us is what's going on in quantum physics, yeah, but it's been hidden from us, not with any sinister intent, you know, because it's just something that physicists discuss, yeah. But we can't afford to leave that conversation in the lab.
Speaker 1Right. So we need to mainstream the conversation. Absolutely. Yeah.
SpeakerNot with the view of just sort of saying, look, we've this is cracked now, we've sorted it, you need to believe this. Not at all. It's saying this information is too important to ignore.
Speaker 1So we're folding it into our advances in psychology and neuroscience. Absolutely.
SpeakerYeah, yeah. Back to the convergence thing that we talked about at the last session, really, where you know, uh obviously we've got to filter out silly stuff, but you know, things like ancient wisdom, maybe they need to be brought on brought back on the table, you know, from a point of view. Let's try and look scientifically for what we can do to bring them closer.
Speaker 2Yeah.
SpeakerFor me personally, and it's just my own bias, I always like to think there's at least some scientific grounding in it. Now, that doesn't mean to say it's you know, it follows all the normal classical physics rules, it's got to be repeatable, you know, predictable, etc. etc. in large sample sizes. If we do that, we immediately narrow down what we're prepared to listen to.
Speaker 1Right, yeah.
SpeakerBut how can you narrow it down to classic physics, something that you know does not explain the universe? It doesn't make sense, you know. So it's like, yeah, let's love what we've got, but actually there's a hell of a lot more out there that we all need to look at together.
Speaker 2Yeah.
SpeakerYeah. Uh sorry, you're gonna say so.
Speaker 1Well, I was just I was thinking about um a student of Einstein's Jung and how you know, and I don't know, uh his attitude to psychology almost wasn't restricted by um the empirically isolated variables, you know.
SpeakerIt it did go into the esoteric and it, you know he allowed himself the freedom, and and obviously I think Einstein was a big influence on him in that sense. It's sort of, you know, we've got these powers of thought for good reasons, so let's use them. Yeah, and it's only at a later stage if you because it's then about using your imagination to create hypotheses, and then the science can come in to test the hypotheses, right? So you never entirely leave the science behind. But the initial inquiry and experimentation, thought experimentation, you know, that should have a lot more latitude. Now, for some people that takes us into a bit of philosophy, metaphysics, etc., that type of stuff. But to me, that's okay. You know, you go through this filtering process almost alright, yeah. But let's really open our minds up at the start and try to work out what is going on here because what we've come up with so far is not working. And surely, surely nobody can contest that, can they? I think it'd be a very strange person that sort of said everything's everything's cool. Yeah, we totally nailed it, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, I agree. I mean it uh that that rings true to sort of uh how a more experienced uh person is using AI tools, for example, that it can create the framework, and then you use your your human divergence to to to fill it out, and then you can kind of uh filter at the end and and test.
SpeakerYes, yeah, that's an example of that. So I mean, you know, we we won't get too much into AI at this stage, but in essence, it's an execution tool. Right, yeah, you know, it's there for um channeling information, spotting patterns, etc. But it's only one part of the human psyche, yeah, you know, and there are other parts around imagination, reflection, and emotion and instincts that are not accessible to AI, even though it does a very clever job of mimicking it.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
SpeakerYeah, so that's that's part of it, it's exploring, particularly before if we're gonna throw everything over the fence in terms of our rational thinking for AI to capture at the other side of the fence. What have we got left? Yeah, you know, so it's a huge question for leaders now. It's like if you're gonna give all this to AI, what is left? What is true leadership? And actually, there's an opportunity in that because we're now talking about leadership rather than management. Yeah, management is very rational, and to me, leadership has been lost in management in many ways, and to me, leadership is about creating a following, and following is about wanting to be there, wanting to be part of it, and that's about instinctive and emotional connection, yeah. And what you do and channel that connection, you know, and that's the leadership challenges facing us now, and not only like in organizations but globally.
Speaker 1Yeah, and instinctively I want to say I want to say instinctive and emotional in that, and I also want to say energetic. Yeah, yeah. So that to me, leadership moves more towards quantum energy than it does about execution, command, and control kind of precisely that, you know.
SpeakerBut because we've limited our brains to understanding the more rational processes, we're novices at the at the non-rational, so we need to get back there, and then we go back again to the iceberg. It's like, how can you understand the dynamics of icebergs if you don't understand the energetic forces that shift them around in the ocean or in the water, right? Because that's what's putting them where they are and what's shaping them, all the forces that shape them. You know, and it's like uh to be fair, it even Newton sort of said, used the quote about you know, when we play with this stuff, we're like children playing with pebbles on the beach, you know. But actually, what we should be doing is thinking about the ocean that's created. Created the pebbles on the beach in the first place. Yeah, exactly. But we don't we haven't been doing that. So it's you know, we need to look at this ocean in as an analogy and find and try to work up what the hell is going on.
Speaker 1Totally. I mean, you still haven't given us a joke, Clive. I feel like that was a that was a juicy anecdote. I'll let you off. Yeah, you let me off on that one, yeah.
SpeakerYeah, yeah.
unknownNo.
SpeakerLet me give me one good example that comes to mind, I think, about um where the human context um is directly impacted by our understanding of quantum energy. When you get into quantum physics, um you are introduced to the principle of non-locality. Okay. What that means is at the energetic level, everything is connected, okay, regardless of time and regardless of location of space. If you take that then into the human world, it means the idea of us being separate beings is just an illusion that we are not. We have learned to see each other in a way that appears to be separate. Okay, that's our belief systems, our assumptions. But the truth is we are all connected, and that's when you get into concepts like karma and all that sort of stuff, yin yin yang, and how energy forces actually connect us. Okay, so then if back in the pragmatic world you can say, and isn't that demonstrated by the by the fact that we're in such a bad shape on a global scale? You know, if if we understood we are really all in this together rather than separately, we would be approaching these challenges very differently. Yeah, but people are choosing to back their own interests, you know, whether it's political or economic, and hanging on to what they've got and doing the more afraid they feel, the more they fight for those angles. Therefore, the course we're on at the moment is one of division and polarity, yeah, separating us us out. But it doesn't make any sense. Any logical person can see that ultimately the forces we are dealing with, and it's not just quantum stuff, it's climate stuff. You cannot shape that in terms of countries and political borders. Nature ignores politics, it just does what it does, yeah. And yeah, yeah, so our whole relationship with nature needs to be reviewed, and and the quantum perspective is a part of that. Yeah, you know, when we talk about consciousness, I'm getting quite passionate now, aren't I? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When we uh talk about um consciousness at a future debt, I'll talk about our evolutionary debt and how how we as a species owe everything, not something, everything, to the species that have come before us. Okay and and the point of doing that is to recognize we are entirely a product of nature, and nature is a product of the universe. So why do we have to think always in terms of separation? We are not. You know, we are just another example of the way that the universe works. So anything we can do to understand the universe and the forces that drive this is gonna bring us closer to a more reliable understanding of human nature.
Speaker 1Of human nature, yeah. Yeah. I've had full tingles for good, yeah.
SpeakerI I like the way that came out because I never quite know what's gonna come out, and of course it's a very technical subject, so making it relatable um is is challenging sometimes.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think I think you nailed that one.
SpeakerOkay, good.
Speaker 1Amazing. And so here we go. Um you you said you'd serve up a dish of energy, and I feel you really did. And now I want to know what the next course is.
SpeakerOkay, so you were I less shall we call out the mains? I don't know, but you want dessert, but you can decide.
Speaker 1I think this is a taste of menu. I'm thinking this is like just eight dishes bought out by men in white gloves with great silver cloches whipped off in synchrony.
SpeakerAnd that may not be relatable for everyone.
Speaker 1Everyone's seen beauty in the beef.
SpeakerOh, okay, yes, that's true.
Speaker 1They should if they haven't seen it. Good point.
SpeakerSo one now that we've put a physics perspective on this, when the next session we'll look at neuroscience. Okay, so that's the other revelationary type source of information that we currently have. Okay, so whilst quantum physics has been, you know, I've made this comment about it being in the lab for the last hundred years or so, yeah, and now we need to get out on the table. That breakthrough, I think, in neuroscience has been more specifically tied to the 1990s, so more recently, but nevertheless, it came along through um the development of imaging technology, functional MRI scans and all the other stuff that's followed since. So, what that's meant for the first time is we can now look at the human brain in operation. Before that, it was post-mortem type type stuff, or or animals. Whereas now our understanding is just rapidly accelerating about the way that the brain really does work. Now, we'll get into the debate when we talk about consciousness as the difference between brain and mind, because there's no answers on a postcard to that one. Was that a joke? Would that pass as a joke? No, no. No, okay, cool. All right, so I'm still working on that.
unknownOkay.
SpeakerSo, but basically no tingles.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah. No tingles whatsoever.
SpeakerOkay, yeah, well, it can't work every time. Um, so basically, it's like, yeah, let's so let's understand the most recent research and understanding about human nature from a neuroscience perspective, which I think is more easily relatable because we can put it into human stories. You know, we'll talk about the difference and between instincts and emotions and thoughts and how they operate in the brain, and the difference between brain intelligence and body intelligence, etc. etc. Okay. So it's the next slug of information. We say, all right, we started with the opener, yeah, we've put some physics on the table, yeah, okay, and we've opened up the dilemmas about our understanding of the universe and human nature. Now let's see what neuroscience has got to bring. And thereafter, the one after that, we'll then talk about consciousness, which is a big debate that spans all of those and brings neuroscience, physics, psychology, brings them all together, you know, in a way that we'll hopefully start to make some sense of the science. Oh if you still if your brains are still with me by then.
Speaker 1I'm excited. Stay with us. We're gonna get soupy brainy consciousness in a minute. Okay.
SpeakerWell, maybe a bit more than a minute, but yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, a few minutes. Realistically, yeah, yeah. Tens of minutes.
Speaker 1Stay with us for tens of minutes. Yeah, Clive, thank you so much, everyone. Thank you so much for listening and stay tuned for episode three.
SpeakerPlease do.